Elaira felt her heart bang hard against her ribs. ‘Do you mean to tell me, that you don’t know who you are?’ His response came back mocking. ‘I thought I did. Has something changed?’ ‘No.’ Elaira gripped both hands in front of her shins: two could play his game. ‘Your Grace, you are Teir’s’Ffalenn, prince and heir-apparent of the crown of Rathain. All that pompous rhetoric means true-born son of an old-blood high king. Every able man in this city, as well as the surrounding countryside, would give his eldest child to be first to draw and quarter you.’
